DENISE
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Denise was born in 1930 in Williston North Dakota. She was conceived after a visit from Clyde Dorsey who was trying to persuade Emma to return to Spokane. Evidently that brief liaison didn't work out and Clyde returned to Spokane alone.
Pregnant now and alone with inflammatory rheumatism and subsisting on a small relief cheque she gave the newborn baby to her landlord and his wife who had been kind to her as she had just gotten a job in Glendive Montana housekeeping for himself and two daughters.
She gave a letter with the baby that stated that the father of denise was her husband Clyde Dorsey who was on the fire department in Spokane Washington and the names of her brothers and sisters.
The landlord and his wife moved to Washington State where he died leaving Denise with a small insurance endowment. Her foster mother now became obsessed with the idea that living in Washington State Denise might meet one of her brothers and fall in love and marry them that she disclosed to her that she was not their biological daughter. She showed her the letter her mother Emma had written when she gave denise away.
Denise was now 21 years old and she left immediately for Spokane to get in touch with her biological father Clyde Dorsey.
When she went to the fire department in Spokane to enquire about him they told her that he was living in Mentone Calififornia with his mother Sarah Dorsey having newly retired from the fire department.
She went to Mentone only to find that Clyde had just died, so she was never able to meet her biological father.
Her grandmother sarah told her the addresses of her brothers and also told her that while she didn't know where her mother was as no one had heard from her since 1937, she did know that Emma's mother was a Rose Potter who lived in the small town of Gananoque Ontario Canada.
Denise went to Gananoque to meet her maternal grandmother but she too hadn't heard from Emma since 1939 when she had received a postcard saying she was going to marry a man by the name of Blackburn.
With only this as a clue Denise enlisted the aid of her brothers to try and find the mysterious Blackburn and his wife, if it were indeed Emma her mother. There were no clues as to the whereabouts of Blackburn in Yakima and none of the Blackburns living there had ever heard of an Emma marrying any of their relatives.
During this time Denise married a man named Butler and had a daughter Cindy. She promptly divorced him giving her reason which we often quote "This kid isn't going to be pushed around by any man!" She then married a Pizza baker and had a son Tony, only to divorce him.
She came to live with us in Seattle in 1957 and left Cindy and Tony with us while she was ostensibly going to school in order to support herself as she had the small proceeds from her foster fathers insurance to sustain her.
The schooling didn't last long as Denise had met another husband, one of seven and had a daughter Colleen by him.
Denise despaired of ever finding her mother when in 1966 36 years after she was born Emma showed up at brother Bob's house just 29 years after her last appearance to any of the family.
Both mother and daughter were surprised to meet each other but Denis harbored no rancor against her mother. It was surprising that both mother and daughter had almost identical hand-writing and denise was a carbon copy of Emma as a young woman.
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